CHOICES

A publication of AAEA

Herbicide Resistance Management

The spread of herbicide resistant weeds is threatening crop yields, farm profits, community cohesion, and environmental quality. Public and private efforts to stave off weed resistance have largely failed. Papers in this issue examine factors leading to weed resistance, socio-economic barriers to resistance management, and new policy options moving forward.

Herbicides became the dominant pesticide type applied in the United States, with the bulk applied to corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat. Major factors affecting use trends since 1980 are crop acreage, the use of newer compounds applied at lower per-acre rates, and the adoption of genetically-engineered crops.

The trend in U.S. corn and soybean crop protection over the past two decades is towards a one-size-fits-all approach that links farmers’ insect, weed, and disease management decisions. With reemerging challenges that include herbicide resistant weeds, it is an opportune time to redirect this trend toward a more resilient approach.

Pressures to improve productivity while also addressing agro-ecological challenges are placing farmers in a bind. Using the example of weed resistance to glyphosate, we examine farmers’ strong ideological support of technological optimism and individualism and discuss how this support reflects the bind in which famers find themselves.

Successful community-based intervention requires that the benefits outweigh the social costs--including long term productivity, monitoring, compliance, and transaction costs to the community--of pest spillovers on neighboring farms in the community. If these conditions are met, this approach may be more efficient in addressing local socioeconomic and behavioral issues.